Fox News’ Sean Hannity said he expects President Trump will declare a national emergency to direct military funding toward a border wall.
“I’m guessing he’s going to declare a national emergency,” Hannity said during the “Sean Hannity Show” on Monday.
Hannity pointed to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., saying in an interview that Trump could use emergency powers to build a wall.
“Unfortunately, the short answer is yes,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Smith also noted that such a move typically has been done to build facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. “In this case, I think the president would be wide open to a court challenge saying, ‘Where is the emergency?’”
Hannity, who is well-known to have the Trump’s ear and has interviewed the president on a number of occasions, claimed on his talk radio show that it wouldn’t be challenging to conjure up numbers to demonstrate that there is a national emergency.
“This shouldn’t be that hard to figure out, because when you have that many people that are that many victims of crime happening in this country, that should be enough of a national emergency,” Hannity said.
A total of 158,581 administrative arrests for civil immigration violations were conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in fiscal 2018, including 105,140 arrests of convicted criminals and 32,977 arrests of individuals with pending criminal charges.
Trump is slated to deliver a speech on border security Tuesday evening before visiting the Mexican border on Thursday amid a partial government shutdown that stems from the dispute over border wall funding.
Trump has long discussed building a border wall and has requested more than $5 billion in funding to build it, but Democrats have not agreed to such a proposal.
